Samsung to double mobile phone capacity at main Indian factory

Samsung Electronics is spending 860 billion won ($766 million) to double its production capacity for smartphones and home appliances at its plant near New Delhi, India. The company is already believed to have bought 35 acres of land for the goal.

Samsung has expanded the plant on an additional 35 acres of land adjacent to the current facility which help it double the production capacity of both mobile phones and refrigerators.

"Samsung prides itself in being a key pillar of the Government's "Make in India" and "Digital India" initiatives", the company said.

This new investment of INR 4,915 crore is a testament to our continuing commitment to Make in India and to Uttar Pradesh, which has been our partner right from the day Samsungs journey in India began. Mobile phone manufacturing started in 2005.

The Yogi Adityanath government did its bit to help Samsung set up the Rs 4,900 crore project in Noida by waiving off the stamp duty the company had to pay for the lease of land for its mega project.

There could be multiple reasons why Samsung took more than a decade to announce the expansion of the plant.

The company broke ground in Noida in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday local time on a plot of land that spans 35 acres, which it recently purchased near the factory now in operation.

The Korean firm said that the investment would position the Noida plant as a major production hub and create about 5,000 new jobs.

He added that he is "open to the idea of having new policy initiatives" to develop a complete ecosystem for local manufacturing and also encouraging exports from the country.

Mobile manufacturing in India increased to Rs 54000 crore in 2015-2016 and is likely to exceed Rs 90000 crore by the end of this year, according to official data. Samsung's Noida plant was one of the first electronics manufacturing facilities set up in India in the early 1990s.

Samsung now has two factories in India, one in Noida and a second one in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu. Samsung now has 10 percent of its overall production in India and aims to take it to 50 percent over the next three years.

Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, who was also present, said Samsung hopes to manufacture 100 million mobile phone in India by 2020.